HINTERG wrote:Oh dear. And all the time I thought cookies made my computing time just easier. I am not entirely convinced by the financial argument made here though. After all, we kind of expect all this information on the web to be free, but truth is, it has to be paid for somehow. Seems like its time for LF to do an article (another?) on spam filters

Spam and cookies aren't quite in the same category. Spam is totally unsolicited garbage. While cookies are used to gather information, sure, some may later be used to target you with spam, but that's a separate issue.

If LXF want's info about where I am or what i know, to know who to contact if they comments relevant to my location of knowledge, that's OK. But when someone like Adsense or Doubleclick want it to pick the right ads to target me with, or to sell to someone else to target me with the right ads, that's a different kettle of fish, and I want to be paid before they get it.

That makes me wonder if we should have a separate discussion on the proper use of cookies. Maybe a LXF article on the proper use of cookies.

Look, I know you need some cookies to make a forum or e-commerce site work properly. But why does a site like the local newspaper, who doesn't need confirmed feedback from me, need a lot of cookies as well? Why do sites who only make static pages for information available to visitors need with cookies?

The answer to the above questions is - they don't, but they use the cookies to gather information on the visitors so they can use or sell it. This shouldn't be allowed. The other main use is to use it to target ads on the site to the visitor - which is more objectionable.

Deadly Ernest
(all typos are the fault of the
server gremlins, not the writer)

Deadly_Ernest wrote:The answer to the above questions is - they don't, but they use the cookies to gather information on the visitors so they can use or sell it. This shouldn't be allowed.

Why?

I sense a lot of paranoia in this thread...

If they get data on me, why should they get paid for it and I don't?

If you want my buying records to target advertising to me, then you should be paying me for it, not someone else. My life, my activities, my info, my money - yep, I'm just grubbin' for some more of it.

Deadly Ernest
(all typos are the fault of the
server gremlins, not the writer)

So you not only want to read the local newspaper for free, you want them to pay you for doing it?

The sites provide a service, but it is a commercial enterprise, they have to make money. They can do this through advertising or subscriptions, either way, you are giving them something in return for the information they provide to you. If you don't want to pay in any way, you can choose not to use the site.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." (Albert Einstein)

Dutch_Master wrote:Then why isn't there an ad- and cookie-free site for LXF subscribers? I already payed Future my subscribtion fee

That's because the subscription is fr the paper based magazine that you receive. To differentiate you from people who only become LXF web forum members you get extra access to the PDFs available on the website. You need to enter your subscription number in conjunction to your web login.

The alternative is a subscription only web site which has proved extremely unpopular with web users. Hopefully the advertising on Future Publishing's web sites generates enough income to pay for all hosting, development and maintenance costs (and maybe some profits as well ).

Just because advertisers can do more targeted advertising it doesn't mean you have to buy the product. You only have to see the number of Microsoft ads on the LXF site to question the effectiveness of current data sets. I also seem to be getting a large number of ukfast hosting ads

If you don't want cookies turn them off, but don't complain when you can't get into web sites (not just Future Publishing's sites). Using Firefox you can also block ads but I can see this being detected in the future and access being restricted in a similar manner to cookie blocking today.

nelz wrote:So you not only want to read the local newspaper for free, you want them to pay you for doing it?

The sites provide a service, but it is a commercial enterprise, they have to make money. They can do this through advertising or subscriptions, either way, you are giving them something in return for the information they provide to you. If you don't want to pay in any way, you can choose not to use the site.

It's one thing to put ads up on the site, like the people who pay to have ads placed in my letterbox. I can choose to read them or not. It's another for them to gather information about me, any information.

With or without the cookies, the ads go on the web site, I choose to read or ignore them, that's my choice. The do NOT need cookies to do that, especially cookies from someone other than lxf. As is evidence by this page appear the same as it did before I killed off all those other cookies by denying them access to my system.

The external cookies just gather information about, information I never gave them permission to gather.

When the people from the local paper come around and ask us lots of questions about what we'd like to see in the paper and what we read, they usually give us something to repay us for our time and trouble, a free magazine or a voucher for a free drink or something.

I don't mind the people putting up the ads, I object to them come into my place to find out what I like without my permission, and that's what the thrid party cookeis are doing.

Deadly Ernest
(all typos are the fault of the
server gremlins, not the writer)

Dutch_Master wrote:Then why isn't there an ad- and cookie-free site for LXF subscribers? I already payed Future my subscribtion fee

That's because the subscription is fr the paper based magazine that you receive. To differentiate you from people who only become LXF web forum members you get extra access to the PDFs available on the website. You need to enter your subscription number in conjunction to your web login.

The alternative is a subscription only web site which has proved extremely unpopular with web users. Hopefully the advertising on Future Publishing's web sites generates enough income to pay for all hosting, development and maintenance costs (and maybe some profits as well ).

Just because advertisers can do more targeted advertising it doesn't mean you have to buy the product. You only have to see the number of Microsoft ads on the LXF site to question the effectiveness of current data sets. I also seem to be getting a large number of ukfast hosting ads

If you don't want cookies turn them off, but don't complain when you can't get into web sites (not just Future Publishing's sites). Using Firefox you can also block ads but I can see this being detected in the future and access being restricted in a similar manner to cookie blocking today.

It's already happening, I tried to get onto a e-commerce site and couldn't get anything to show, I checked the 'view source' and followed up as much of the code I could, then contacted the web master, he explained a bit more and the company gets paid to display certain ads on all the web sites they host, so they have code to detect if the ads are being accepted or not, and if they don't get the right bounce that indicates that, then the site doesn't show. The way he explained it, i think they get a report of acceptance of a third party cookie or something similar, if they don't get the OK from the third party server, you go no further.

I contacted the company and explained I couldn't access their web site to check prices and information, and thus their tender for the contract was being rejected for failure to meet validation of services. (I was working at a government agency at the time). The company was NOT happy to be cut out of the tendering process with a rejection type that automatically denied them consideration for other tenders for some months. That was about a year ago, so I'm sure they've come up with other ways of doing the same.

I know of several companies that failed to get government contracts as as their web sites weren't visible through high security gateways due to excessive scripts calling from third party sources resulted in the sites being put on the blacklist as spam sources. It took them months to get off that list.

But don't worry, the MS SecureComputing concept will require you to be a spcial registered user just to be able to talk to the bleeding routers.

Deadly Ernest
(all typos are the fault of the
server gremlins, not the writer)

Deadly_Ernest wrote:If they get data on me, why should they get paid for it and I don't?

Because they are advertisers and you are a user of a website that employs the technology used by the advertisers.

Are you also of the opinion you should get paid to watch TV adverts, too? Sometimes they are targeted and ads will be for products or services that share some link with the programme being shown.

Cookies are generally harmless.

First
TV ads are targeted on the basis of the program and the transmission time, from that, they work out a probably audience and put up ads for that audience, they do the same for ads in magazines and newspapers as the ads vary with the product. They don't ask you who you are and then change the ads.

second
I have been paid to watch tv ads - a few times to attend a location and give my responses to the ads, but mostly to have a ratings box in the house. It recorded what tv we watched and when (kind of like what the cookies do), for providing that data, I was given vouchers to get products free.

Interestingly, I've had all the third party cookies blocked for several days now, and yet the lxf web page still shows the same ads, they seem to be coming from the lxf web site but no cookies - so what were those extra cookies doing?

You don't need cookies on my system to push ads to me from your web site.

Oh, re cookies are harmless, so is most bacteria, yet we constantly wash ourselves to get rid of the bacteria.

Deadly Ernest
(all typos are the fault of the
server gremlins, not the writer)

Deadly_Ernest wrote:The external cookies just gather information about, information I never gave them permission to gather.

It's their information, when you visited their site, which links you followed etc. The cookie is merely a way of caching that information so they can add to it the next time you visit. It doesn't send any information the site didn't send to it in the first place. You give them permission to store that information by accepting cookies from their site. It's up to the site whether they let you in without cookies enabled, many do not.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." (Albert Einstein)

Deadly_Ernest wrote:The external cookies just gather information about, information I never gave them permission to gather.

It's their information, when you visited their site, which links you followed etc. The cookie is merely a way of caching that information so they can add to it the next time you visit. It doesn't send any information the site didn't send to it in the first place. You give them permission to store that information by accepting cookies from their site. It's up to the site whether they let you in without cookies enabled, many do not.

I give lxf permission to gather information and use it on their site, I don't give that permission to a third party for other commercial reasons. My system still receives cookies from lxf and allows them to do what they do, I no longer allow cookies from hitbox.com. Since I've made the change, I've seen no differences to the way the site displays, and yes, I've rebooted the system since then too - after shutting down to be away all day.

I still don't understand why they need so many extras.

Deadly Ernest
(all typos are the fault of the
server gremlins, not the writer)